I don't know if you can ever get used to seeing dead people, but after so many years, Callum at least knows to expect them and not be too surprised by their appearances.  You know what is scarier than seeing ghosts though?  It's not seeing them all of a sudden. Callum was walking home through the forest and there were always ghosts gathering there, but today, nothing. It's dead silent. Then as he tried to hurry home, he heard a piercing howl. He had no interest in finding out what could be so terrifying that even the ghosts had to hide.
Callum started running.
When he got inside and had calmed himself down, he thought perhaps he'd imagined it all.  Afterall, it could just be all that murder talk he'd been hearing about all day.  The kids were discussing the gruesome details today...something about the victims' eyes being torn out and stuff. He's sure a good night sleep would make everything better, but of course, you already know that is not going to happen.
The cover, as you can see, is a bit over the top, but it is a decent page-turning horror story, which is hard to come by in books for that late elementary / early high school group. The "hunt" begins almost right away, and it's hard to stop reading as you watch this nightmare unfolds for Callum, his grandma and his new friend Melissa. The murders are pretty gory, but the scariest scene is definitely when Callum literally comes face to face with the hunter with just the window of his house between the two. It's bone-chilling scary.  The characters are okay, but I'm sure character development is not the key here,which is just fine for this type of story.

People always say that boys love non-fiction, and that sports non-fiction is particularly good. This is true, for certain boys. Like any other subject area, it has its fans, but there are just as many guys who don't care, or at least don't care about the same sports.

The best way to make this clear is to think of sports as you would music. There are many genres of music, and not all appeal to everyone. There's classical music, rap, rock, country, folk, world... on and on it goes. Likewise, there is hockey, basketball, baseball, football (Canadian, American and soccer), and so on. Pick the one or two that makes sense for your area.

Vancouver is hockeytown at the moment, especially with the Canucks within striking distance to the Stanley Cup. It makes sense, then to have something relevant to our team available. A good, current book for us is Canucks at Forty, given that it's the Canucks 40th anniversary. It has profiles of past and present players, and defining moments from the team's history. Of course, this book wouldn't make sense in Toronto or Houston. And even in Vancouver, this book will lose meaning soon as the years wear on and new stars arrive.

Timeliness is important. Michael Jordan is a famous retired basketball player. This means he doesn't play anymore, and is no longer in the public eye. He certainly isn't the face of the NBA anymore. And yet, I see a lot of libraries still have these old books, books about stars that either don't play anymore or have added so much to their careers that the book is really irrelevant or even embarrassing. While having bios of important players is good, historical perspective is very important. For example, this book, The Definitive Word on Michael Jordan could well be very good. But it was written before Jordan finished his career, so it doesn't even cover his whole story in the game.

The point is, you need to know your local teams, the most popular sports, and how current the material you have is. If you have a 20 year old cricket book in Calgary, you probably don't have many interested readers. Boys aren't likely to read it. Get the latest stuff, toss anything older than a couple of years, or, better yet, get a subscription to a couple of sporting magazines.

What do you and others consider as "real" reading? Check out Charles London's post in The Huffington Post.  Charles London is the author of We Are Not Eaten by Yaks.

This is the grandpappy of books for teen boys. I read this one when I was 12 or 13, and I'm not sure how I got my hands on it. Maybe it found me. I don't know. I do know that I loved it, and it opened a whole new world for me, and that it really kickstarted my adult reading and helped form my tastes from then on, from movies to TV, and obviously reading. The absurd humor, the off-point ramblings, the made up facts from the Guide to the memorable tag line "Don't Panic", it was perfect.

The Earth has been destroyed and Cheney and the rest of what’s left of mankind is on a spaceship, hoping to eventually find another livable planet. The spaceship is a super hightech machine that provides for all their needs. All is going well until they hit a strange band of radiation. Suddenly the ship is transformed into a living organism that hunts down the human occupants, thinking that they are harmful bacterial/viruses.
Serious and action packed, with people being eaten alive and dissolved by acid-spitting immune cells.

Jack Morgan, an orphan and thief, is on the run after being framed for 2 murders he did not commit. While investigating the remains of a crashed spaceship, he finds Draycos, an alien of the K’da, running away from his enemies the Valahgua (also aliens). Draycos bonds to Jack and is able to slip into his skin as the form of a tattoo. With Draycos on his kin, Jack is able to use some of the alien's powers. The two of them embark on a mission to save the rest of Draycos’ race and clear Jack’s name. Lots of spaceship battles, chases, aliens, and the plot has more of the feeling of epic fantasy...
Timothy Zahn is author of several Star Wars Expanded Universe novels and other adult sci-fi/fantasy novels.

Alex never thought that a couple break-and-enters could land him in so much trouble. It’s on one of these break-ins that mysterious men in black suits suddenly appear, kill his friend and frame him for murder. He’s sent to the Furnace - a top security prison built miles underground for juvenile delinquents. The Furnace is no ordinary prison -- skinless dogs try to eat you alive, terrifying creatures with masks sewn on their faces come and take you away at night. No one has ever made it out of the prison alive, but Alex is determined to escape.
Lots of action, lots of scary bad guys and no teen angst or issues! This one had me on the edge of my seat the whole time and I had to read the sequel right away. The third on is coming out later this year and I can't wait...

Twelve-year-old Oliver Watson pretends to be the dumb kid -- but he is in fact a genius who has made himself rich and is plotting his way to world domination. When Oliver’s father — and archnemesis — brags about winning his middle school election, Oliver decides to spite his dad by proving that anyone -- even himself-- can win a class election. Since he isn't exactly the most popular kid in his class, he resorts to intimidation, bribery, and blackmail... A funny read with lots of pranks, (darts that give gas, chemicals that give colds and rashes, letting the air out of tires), a kidnapping, bombs and violent dodgeball.

Junior is a 14 year-old teen living on an Indian reserve in Spokane. Life is hard and dysfunctional -- his father is an alcoholic, his sister has run away and he is regularly bullied. When his teacher urges him to find a better life by leaving the reservation, junior decides to enroll in a high performing, wealthy, all-white high school, where the only other Indian is the school mascot. Despite the racism and social stigma, Junior eventually finds himself making friends with both geeky and popular students and starting on the basketball team.
While the narration by Junior is sarcastic and funny -- filled with self depreciating humor, witty comments and cartoons (drawn by Junior), the focus here are issues of prejudice, marginalization, friendship, with very serious events such as suicide, sister dying in a fire, grandma killed by drunk driver.

I'm never really sure what to think about crime memoirs targeted to teen audiences. I've always been under the impression that they set out to teach a lesson, to make it clear that Crime Does Not Pay. This one tells you that, but it's more roundabout, no cramming morals down your throat.

Henry grew up in a tiny town in the Midwest in a rough family. His father was an alcoholic gun nut and his mother couldn't make up for that, so Henry and his brother could pretty much do whatever he liked. This, of course, created a situation where he found himself in bigger and bigger trouble until he found himself in jail for armed robbery, all by the time he's 16.

The story is told in alternating chapters, switching between the beginning of his time in jail and his life leading up to his arrest. He details his crimes, his interest in Satanism, his torture of small animals and the thrill he experienced when commit violent acts.

Once in jail, things change for him. While he doesn't go into that much detail about his feelings in jail, he does discuss his fear of turning out like the career criminals he meets and other terrifying or just plain crazy inmates whose lives revolve around going in and out of prison.

I liked this book for that very reason. I think that Henry told the story without glamour, got the point across that in his experience crime would lead nowhere, all without having to preach. He told the story straight. That said, I'm a bit confused. While he did preface the book with the usual warning of "some details have been changed", the one part that made no sense was the epilogue. I was confused, was it a memoir or a novelization of his life. I don't need my memoirs to be gospel truth, but I'm just confused as to whether the epilogue was real or not.

There is a lot of swearing in this book, and some frank discussion and depiction of sex and violence, but that's perfectly reasonable given the context. Nothing here is gratuitous, and it serves to emphasize the point he's making. Crime ain't pretty.

I'm reluctant to mention this one, and I don't want to put the original cover up, but I have to. Here it is:
Awful, isn't it? Look at those faces, getting ready to kiss each other in an otherwise cool shot of the stars. Sigh. And here is the back of the dust jacket:



Here's what I suggest. When you get the book, make sure to flip the cover and put this on the front. Way cooler, and much more accurately reflects the content of the story. None of that kissy-face nonsense.

This book is real science fiction. The plot, the setting, even the climax and resolution, all true sci-fi. I guess the marketers wanted to appeal to the huge girl market, and in doing so, are infringing on the one remaining boys' genre.

Amy is a teenager whose parents have signed the family up to be cryogenically frozen and shipped across space to a new planet that the will repopulate. The trip is a 300-year journey, and they will in theory be completely unaware of the passage of time. For Amy, that's not the case. She has nightmares. She knows something is going on, if only subconsciously. And then she wakes up.

50 years too soon.

If that was it, a girl with nightmares, I wouldn't be interested, but the story is also about Elder. A teenager himself, he is the youngest person on the ship. It's the only home he's known, and it's been that way for generations. He is destined to be the leader of the ship when the current one, Eldest, dies. However, he feels that he hasn't been properly prepared for this role by the Eldest. He seeks to learn more, and quickly discovers that all is not is as it seems on the ship, and discovers what no one else knows; there are people frozen on a secret deck of the ship.

Amy is one of them. And she looks nothing like anyone he's ever seen. And now she is awake, and other frozen people are being killed.

I've read enough Science Fiction to know that love, sex and relationships are actually a very common subject in the genre, but it's usually addressed in a pretty detached way. (Ever read Heinlein? You'll know exactly what I mean). Based on the cover, I was expecting a lot of emoting and whining here, but there wasn't much. If there was, I wouldn't recommend it to boys. Certainly the fact that it starts with the girl character and is in first person present tense (my most hated tense) is a stumbling block, but the story is good. And this book moves quickly, keeping the action going. Not a lot of reflection.

One note to mention, though, and it's important. If the boy you want to give this to likes sci fi, don't. It's the real deal, sure, but they have read the same story and better versions of it. I do like it, and do recommend it to everyone else, though. Just make sure to show the good cover.

Here it is again, just to remind you. Forget that other one.